Joan Tenenbaum: The Artist Linguist – Translating Field Research into Wearable Art

September will witness Joan Tenenbaum’s newest body of work, in which she returns to her early years as a young anthropologist who traveled to Alaska to document a little known Athabaskan language in a small rural Alaskan village.

In previous work Joan has shown us her ability to translate the Alaskan landscape, animals, people, customs and artifacts into exquisite, wearable pieces of art.  Now, for the first time, she demonstrates her remarkable talents in jewelry-making by telling the story of the language itself, the experience of being a field linguist, and the traditional stories she recorded and wrote down for the first time ever in the native Athabaskan language.  Tenenbaum draws on her extensive vocabulary as a goldsmith to weave her own tale related to the documentation of one of the world’s most complex languages.

Joan Tenenbaum will share her experiences from her years spent living with the Athabaskans and Eskimos in Alaska and be available to autograph books at 7pm on Wednesday, September 12.  Please call to reserve tickets.  Admission $5.

Exhibition Dates: